04 January 2009

How much did the Department of Health pay the likes of Melinda Messenger for publicity? We shall never know. They used our money but the Freedom of Information Act does not allow us to find out.

Do you know who Melinda Messenger is? If you are an old fart like Dr Grumble you may never have heard of her. If you do a google image search (make sure you are not at work) and take off the 'safe search' you can see what she has to offer. They used her in the 5 A DAY campaign apparently. Not that old Grumble saw anything of the campaign. Nor did the Grumble children. What is the justification for 5 a day anyway? Is there any? Melinda Messenger's five times a day sounds too much. Too much for Dr Grumble anyway. But was she paid too much? We shall never know.

And what does Dr Grumble think of Melinda's performance? She was actually quite good. Certainly up to the Grumble standard. As for the video as a whole, it was easily up to the usual Department of Health standard.

The clinical experts mentioned on 11.1.09 should have read "clinical experts".

Dr G rather felt that the clinical expert they had engaged was more a celebrity than an expert. Her agent's defence was that she was being paid for clinical expertise but that was no defence because most real clinical experts would not have charged. The whole of the NHS should have had an expert in this area who would have been equally or more knowledgeable and would have been honoured to help with this in their own time or their Trust might have released them to do this work.

Professor Byron’s agent, Samantha Richards, said: ‘There’s a very clear demarcation between the role Tanya has as a professional clinical expert and other celebrities who are paid to deliver a PR message. The distinction is that Tanya isn’t a celebrity.’

According to wikepedia Tanya Byron (born 1967) is a British Clinical Psychologist who rose to fame since 2004...... She has an agent and has risen to fame. That is more celebrity than clinical expert.

Dr G did not put in the right links for his comment to make the sense he intended. Apologies.